Friday Night Out

 Train into the city. We pass Comiskey, time to gloss the lips. 

 Here we are at Olivia's high school graduation dinner. 

 That is one big turtle! 

 Behind the scenes...

 Fish food

 The gorgeous oceanarium 

 Why hello there, Nunavik (the youngest baby beluga at the Shedd)

 This was neat to see - it's the medical pool where they care for the belugas and dolphins. The floor rises up from 13 ft deep to just shy of 1 ft, in the event they need to get very close to the animals while still keeping them somewhat submerged. 

 A closer look at the medical pool - those tunnels lead out to the oceanarium. 

 This sea lion was giving Olivia the stink eye! 

 This is the quarantine section - where all fish are brought prior to being introduced to exhibits. It gives them a chance to get acclimated, and adjusted to being "on display". 

Eerie! This is the shark pool. I noticed that red stretcher across the way. Eeeeks. 

*******

Last Christmas Mike and Meghan had given us a membership to the Shedd Aquarium as a family gift - and we have really loved used it! Tonight was a special behind the scenes event - it was so wonderful. I think our favorite was getting to go into the beluga encounter area - we were literally a foot away from them. It was also so cool to go behind the exhibits and see how it's all run. Steve and I wondered how many fish/animals are at the Shedd - close to 32,000. It's one of the largest indoor aquariums. Some of the displays were dark, the fish all have a bedtime of 7:00 pm!